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Master and huntsman Thady Ryan, whipper-in Tommy O'Dwyer, and the Scarteen hounds at Knocktoran Bog (1982) from a print of the oil painting by Peter Curling

When the nights turn crisp and the dinner talk turns to tales of foxhunting, I like to share a bit of philosophy imparted to me by that special animal—part horse, part cat, and all heart—the Irish hunter. That remarkable creature understands something of the flavor of life. He never allows natural caution, reticence, or conservatism to limit his perception of what’s possible.

The Scarteen hounds were hunting a most unusual piece of country in Kilcommon, County Limerick this day. A wild and forbidding landscape, far from the well-traveled roads, high into the hills, it was unknown country even to Master Thady Ryan. To complete the scene, a dense fog obliterated every feature of the landscape.

Kilkenny huntsman Peter Cahill and foxhounds move off from Mount Juliet, the spiritual home of the Kilkenny. / Noel Mullins photo

The Kilkenny Foxhounds were founded by John Power in 1797, and the founder was succeeded by his son Sir John Power in 1844. Hounds have been kennelled since 1921 at Mount Juliet when Major Dermot McCalmont, MFH built the kennels. His son Major Victor McCalmont (Master from 1949-1993) continued the hunting tradition until he passed away while in office.

Stepping into the kennels one can feel the sense of history. Although I have reported on the Kilkenny Foxhounds many times in the past, it has been more than thirty years since I attended a meet at Mount Juliet—the spiritual home of the Kilkennys. At the time, Major Victor McCalmont who hunted the pack for thirty-four seasons was Master. Peter Thomas was hunting hounds and Paddy McDonald was whipping-in. I recall the second horsemen dressed in charcoal grey livery and grey bowler hats arriving to exchange horses with Major Victor and the huntsman in the early afternoon.

This trip was to be the first vacation I have been on for a long time, thanks mostly to our “special” naked cat Alf. With a tendency to occasionally attempt to have sex with a sleeper’s head, hallucinate, or attack without provocation, there are no house sitters lining up for the job of caring for him in our absence. Likewise, no family members or friends. Prozac or no Prozac. That, along with my employer’s— Kaiser Permanente’s—death sentence for time taken off, has us often traveling separately, if at all.

Staying home has not been a hardship since I am happiest at home, but with our horrific winter this year, this nervous traveler headed south on a trip I had watched people enjoy without me for several years. The bastards.

Born in Shanghai, China in 1870, the author of this story crossed the Pacific Ocean with his sea-going father three times by the age of four. A goat was carried aboard ship to provide him with milk. Nason Hamlin was the first recording secretary of the Norfolk Hunt and a member of the field on Norfolk’s first day with hounds in 1896. He took to hunting and polo with exuberance, but his hand-written records are more often expressed in seaman’s jargon than in the language of foxhunting. Here’s Hamlin’s record (abridged) of a Christmas Day live hunt on Cape Cod (pp 27–29, "The Norfolk Hunt: One Hundred Years of Sport" by Norman Fine).

Soapy Sponge, my new dappled-gray runaway, was yet to demonstrate his worth. On Christmas morn, 1899, just as the sun was peeping over the hill, Captain Samuel D. Parker, MFH was hunting the hounds at Eastham, away down on Cape Cod. It was a frosty, sharp morn and hounds were thrown in at the swamp lands fringing the ponds on the bay-side somewhere opposite Billingsgate Island. Shortly we heard a whimper from one hound, and almost immediately the pack took up the find and crashed away in the direction of the shore.

There were some skeptical suggestions that dead fish were the lure, but dead fish by themselves don’t travel, and when the entire pack kept running along the water’s edge in full cry in a northeast point, we all were convinced it was the real thing after all.

New Memorial to Marine Staff Sergeant Reckless is dedicated in ceremonies at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California, on October 26, 2016.

Of the many images still stuck in Harold Wadley’s head from his combat tour in the Korean War, there’s one scene he’ll never forget: the silhouette of a 13.1-hand pack horse, Corporal Reckless, climbing the steep ridge with recoilless rifle ammunition strapped to her back for the Marines as incoming fire and return fire exploded around her. Then he’d see her picking her way back down, alone, carrying wounded marines. One day, during the Battle of Outpost Vegas, she made fifty-one trips, mostly alone, covering thirty-five miles.

Reckless was separated from her youthful owner during the Korean War and became one of the Marine Corps’ greatest heroes. In 1997, when Life Magazine published a special Collectors Edition titled “Celebrating Our Heroes,” the story of Reckless was included alongside the stories of other heroes such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and Mother Teresa.